Lies About Marijuana Drive People to a Much More Harmful Drug – Booze

By
Steve Fox, AlterNet
on November 9, 2009

Professor David Nutt didn’t play the game. As the chief drug policy advisor in the British Government, an unspoken part of his job description was to help maintain a public fiction about marijuana – or cannabis, as it is known in the U.K. and other parts of the world. Specifically, he was expected to further the misperception of cannabis as a substance worthy of being classified and prohibited in a manner similar to more dangerous drugs like heroin and cocaine.

He made a big mistake at the end of last month. In a lecture at King’s College in London, he spoke honestly – and truthfully – about the fact that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol and urged the government to factor the relative harms of substances into their policy-making. Moreover, he accused the British government of ignoring the evidence about the true harms of cannabis in order to reclassify the drug and increase penalties for possession.

Reacting with the logic and reason of pub patron after last call, Home Secretary Alan Johnson immediately demanded that Prof. Nutt resign as the head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He said Prof Nutt had “crossed the line between offering advice and … campaigning against the government on political decisions.”

More accurately, Prof. Nutt crossed the line between deceiving citizens and being honest with them. The home secretary, a former member of Parliament, is no doubt comfortable with a little verbal jousting over public policy decisions. What he could not abide by was a top ranking official threatening the anti-cannabis mythology embraced at the very top level of government. Based on Nutt’s fateful bout of truthfulness, Johnson said he had “lost confidence” in Nutt as an advisor.

In a letter to Professor Nutt, Mr. Johnson explained how the system is supposed to work. He said: “As Home Secretary it is for me to make decisions, having received advice from the [Council] … It is important that the Government’s messages on drugs are clear and as an adviser you do nothing to undermine the public understanding of them … I am afraid the manner in which you have acted runs contrary to your responsibilities.”

The Home Secretary’s chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson put a similar spin on this hostile reaction to fact-based statements to the public. “These things are best sorted out behind the scenes,” he said, “so that the government and their advisers can go to the public with a united front.”

In the real world, what this means is that advisors are free to provide research or reports based on an honest assessment of the scientific evidence, but when this research is completely ignored in setting policy, they are expected to keep their mouths shut and move on as if nothing ever happened.

This is all part of the game the government plays in order to maintain marijuana prohibition. In the United States, there are many examples of significant advisory opinions related to marijuana being completely ignored – even where the opinions were part of a decision-making process that should have led to action by the federal government.

In 1970, Congress established the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse to study marijuana and make recommendations about how to control its use. The Commission’s final report suggested removal of criminal penalties, noting, “The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior.” President Nixon ignored the Commission’s findings and launched and all-out war on marijuana users.

In 1988, Francis Young, an administrative law judge at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), following hearings to determine whether marijuana should be placed into a less restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act, wrote that marijuana should be moved from Schedule I (the most restrictive category) to Schedule II and it would be “unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious” to conclude otherwise. More than 20 years later, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug.

A recently as February 2007, an administrative law judge at the DEA issued an opinion concluding that it would be in the public interest for the agency to grant a license to the University of Massachusetts to grow a limited amount of marijuana to be used to study its potential therapeutic benefits. Faced with this seemingly rational opinion, the political powers at the DEA sat on it for nearly two years and then rejected it by formally denying the University the license in the very last days of the Bush administration.

Of course, ignoring fact- and evidence-based advice about marijuana is just one part of the game our government has played over the past four decades. It has also gone out of its way to promote and spread myths about the drug – from the “gateway” theory to marijuana’s supposed connection to cancer to the notion that “potent pot” is somehow more dangerous than “your father’s marijuana.” Each one has been debunked or proven wrong or misleading, but there is no doubt that they have helped keep marijuana illegal.

Yet there is one myth more insidious than the rest. And it is one that is as devastating as it is subtle.

You see, whether intentional or not, the government’s greatest achievement when it comes to keeping marijuana illegal has been its ability to convince a majority of Americans that marijuana is as harmful as, if not more harmful than, alcohol. By doing so, it has secured alcohol’s place as the recreational substance of choice for the vast majority of the public.

Influenced by the government’s anti-marijuana propaganda, a large segment of our population is comfortable with a system that bans the use of marijuana but allows – and even celebrates – the use of alcohol, despite the fact that alcohol is objectively far more harmful.

Let’s consider just a few facts about the two substances. For starters, alcohol is far more toxic than marijuana. Just ten times the effective dose of alcohol can be fatal. Yet there has never been a recorded marijuana overdose death in history. The highly toxic nature of alcohol is also what leads to the all-too-frequent occurrences of nausea and vomiting from over-indulgence.

Over the long-term, alcohol consumption is also far more likely to lead to the death of the user. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, between 33,000 and 35,000 Americans die annually from the effects of alcohol. The comparable number for marijuana? Zero. The supposed cancer-causing properties of marijuana? Non-existent.

Perhaps most disturbingly, as almost anyone who has been exposed to the two substances could tell you, alcohol is far more likely to produce dangerous and socially destructive behavior. It is cited as a contributing factor in 25-30 percent of violent crimes in this country and in about 100,000 sexual assaults on college campuses annually. These kinds of negative associations simply don’t exist with marijuana.

As mentioned at the beginning, facts like this were quite familiar to Professor Nutt. Even after his firing, he endeavored to spread the truth about the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol and urged parents to be especially wary of the one that posed the greatest potential for damage.

“The greatest concern to parents,” he said, “should be that their children do not get completely off their heads with alcohol because it can kill them … and it leads them to do things which are very dangerous, such as to kill themselves or others in cars, get into fights, get raped, and engage in other activities which they regret subsequently. My view is that, if you want to reduce the harm to society from drugs, alcohol is the drug to target at present.”

Our nation’s leaders might think this is a game, but it isn’t. There are children and adults seriously suffering and even dying because of alcohol, and it is time our leaders started being honest and realistic about how it compares to marijuana – both in terms of public education and public policies. Neither propaganda nor policy should be used to steer adults – or teens, for that matter – toward alcohol instead of marijuana. This does not mean that marijuana is harmless; it simply means, and all of the evidence indicates, that it is less harmful than alcohol.

CANNABIS CULTURE – Hey Canada, congratulations. Weed is legal now. As long as you buy...

Comments

16 Comments

Anonymous on
November 12, 2009 4:26 pm

I couldn’t agree more! This has saved a few people I know from going too far with cocaine, alcohol, heroin, etc. and now they’re just as happy using a safe alternative such hash and marijuana.

Amen bro!

Smoked back to Life on
November 12, 2009 3:25 pm

I have been a medical cannabis patient since the later bush era, and when I was trying to treat myself I was heavily criticized and then forced into rehab so that I would be allowed to move back home from college, in order avoid having my dorm searched daily. The rehab folks made me stop smoking herbs and made me take pills… the problem is that I was trying to treat a multitude of issues, and all the pills did was make me more lethargic and more depressive, not to mention the pills all have their own individual side effects which lead to the need for more pills to treat those side effects, which eventually lead to alcohol, more cigarettes, and a bunch of other potentially harmful habits that were forming around my lack of mental ease. I was eventually able to receive my working medication and medicate safely once again, but while I was being held under the scrutiny and oppression of so called “rehabilitation” I had to suffice with what was so widely and legally available to treat all that was wrong… but in my mind pills, booze, and doctor apathy are no way to treat a depression patient. My doctors were also trying to blame negative side effects I had that were caused by ambien, on pot. The worst part is that I was the person to find out that ambien had been giving me the paranoia, amnesia, and dysphoria through reading its medical facts online, instead of being told by the person who was supposedly diagnosing and treating me. So in essence, my doctor was giving me side effect pills to stop having side effects, and then he continued to tell me the herb smoke would be the least helpful. And all that time I thought the doctors most upheld standard in medicine was to “Do no harm”, but when you add up all the crap I was loaded with to suffice for a single joint, far more harm was being done to me than when I was just on pot. Recently, Ive only been on a lot of cannabis every day for a while now and its been the best, I quit buying cigarettes, lost my alcohol cravings, and have discontinued refilling the so called “silver bullets” that ironically bring my soul far more vampires than they supposedly kill. My taste buds even came back from the dead after I got off tobacco… and I was SMOKING my medicine… so that says a lot about what damages burnt cannabis has on both the tongue and human body altogether. I can personally vouch for cannabis on so many accounts, for it has saved me from extreme manic depression twice, kept me in school and pursuing education instead of getting anti-work depressive behavior, pulled me away from forming addictions of further bodily harm, and allowed me to sleep better and focus with ease. Now lets see… the modernist approach would have me take, Prozac, Ritalin, Ambien, Seraquil, and some appetite stimulant to offset the ritalin’s appetite loss, (which marijuana can decrease as we know)but instead of giving me cannabis they would just give me a fifth “silver bullet” (more like sponge bb) which would just give me another probable health complication or side effect needing another pill…. or I could simply take one overdose free medicinal herb, and treat all of my issues and feel 10x better than I would ever feel on the crap cap cocktail. Because even with all the therapy, so called treatments, and emotional support my problems don’t go away until I have my actual cure which is natural cannabis, as it hits the neuro-pathways and endo-cannabinoid receptors other medicines cannot. Cannabis saves, false propaganda enslaves, and may we all one day be free of prohibition instead of free of drugs… because I dont think anyone would operate very well without any neurotransmitters… but I think Ill just leave it up to the prohibitionists to figure out how to get people to live or function without any drugs in their brains, as we actually need them to survive and process information. Thats what DARE forgot to tell you… your brain off drugs is that egg under the frying pan… as all your brain does is regulate the levels of drugs in your body… so to be drug free would mean being free of your ability to function… and yet even in a partnership for a drug free world… they still advertise booze, pills, and anti-cigarrette ads (which are actually pro cigarette, because they prevent the cigarette companies from being sued over health degeneration in users). Prohibition was hypocritical and evil in the first place and it only gets worse as more lies are told and continued. It was never don’t do drugs, it was don’t do the drugs the less fortunate man sells, because hes not in a shiny oily suit like me and my self proclaimed authority on whats good for you, now have a cigar.
Thank you CC for keeping the public educated and aware instead of obnoxiously defecated upon with misinformation from greedy lobbyists who hate progression and harmonious existence. And thank you for fighting for me and everyone alike, as persistence is always much easier when you know you are not alone in your struggle. The bigger truth is that cannabis heals much more than it has and will ever hurt, and because I almost died once or twice from the bottle over the course of a year, Its safe to say that the herb saved me quite a few times from that same fate in the future. STOP THE LEGAL LIES, LEGALIZE!

Anonymous on
November 11, 2009 8:00 pm

We are the Nican Tlaca, the Indigenous people of this continent, that make this declaration to the world.

We are the Canadian “First Nation” people. We are the “Native Americans”. We are the Indigenous people of Mexico and “Central America”. We are, in our unity, the collective owners of this continent. We recognize no European “settler” (squatter-invader) borders on our continent. We recognize no borders that have been set by European colonizers in the last 500 years.

We are defending our people with our words and actions. We are defending our continent. We are defending the liberated future of our people, our Nican Tlaca nation.

To defend our people and our continent is not a crime. It is not “illegal” to defend your people. It is not “illegal” to travel/migrate on your own land, on your own continent. It is our right and our duty to defend ourselves from the terrorism that has been inflicted on us since 1492 by the hordes of illegal European immigrants.

Let us continue our declaration by being really clear that this whole “immigration and illegals” proposed legislation (all versions) is all about race and racism, racism against Nican Tlaca (Indigenous people), nothing less and nothing more. All the pretend talk of “borders” and “lost American jobs” is all a fraud.

This is all part of the same old legislative racism that defended slavery with laws, that defended segregation with laws, that defended “Indian Killings” with laws, that defended the theft of this whole continent from us the Nican Tlaca (Indigenous people) with laws.

The reality is that the ongoing “immigration and illegals” debate is totally dishonest. This debate needs to be honest by first discussing the hidden history of illegal European immigration to our continent from 1492 to the present. This history of European illegal immigration onto our continent has to be discussed intelligently and aggressively by our people, so that the European descendants of those illegal invasions of our continent can see how they are the only real “illegal immigrants” on this continent. Nican Tlaca cannot under any circumstances be considered “illegal” on this continent.

The European criminal invasions, killings, massacres, and outright ethnocide that killed 95% of our population CANNOT BE SWEPT UNDER THE CARPET OF “THAT’S THE PAST”. That Genocide which “emptied out the land” for Europeans, and allowed for the theft of our wealth of resources, is what unjustifiably enriched Europeans in Europe and Europeans on our continent. We will not “get over it” because it affects us everyday in our poverty, and in the denied access to the vast wealth of our continent. Europeans (whites) control not just the U.S. and Canada but they also control Mexico (Fox is a whiteman) and “Central America”, so everyone can drop the pretense that Mexico and “Central America” are somehow controlled by our people, by Nican Tlaca, Indigenous people.

This whole continent has a history of racism from the point that Europeans came here illegally in 1492. The history begins with the illegal entry of Columbus in 1492, Cortez in 1519, Pizarro in 1532, De Soto in 1538, Oñate in 1598, Pirates at Jamestown 1607, Pilgrim racists in 1619, illegal takeover of “Louisiana Territory” in 1803, Texas in 1836, “Southwest” in 1848, and every inch of land on this continent that has been stolen by killing us (Nican Tlaca, the legitimate and only owners of all of this continent).

There is a long history of illegal Europeans committing crimes against our people on our continent. AND NOW THEY HAVE THE GUILTLESS, SHAMELESS, NERVE TO CALL US “ILLEGALS”? To say that we are criminal trespassers. What happened to truth, to morality, to a sense of justice? Or to guilt and shame for committing crimes? Christians? These are civilized people?

In this criminal historic context, the Post-1492 European-descent illegal immigrants that came to our continent over the last 500 years became the only group of people that could be referred to as “illegals”. WE, THE NICAN TLACA, INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF THIS CONTINENT, under no circumstances can be considered “illegal”, no matter what we are labeled or what European languages we have been forced to speak. All treaties were broken by Europeans, thus they are all null and void. All treaties were signed under threat of more European terrorist attacks on our people, thus they are null and void.

1492 is the only starting point from which “illegals” can be spoken of on this continent. Without that starting point, European descent people speaking of any Nican Tlaca, Indigenous person of this continent, as an “illegal” today is all a criminal fraud and an immoral lie.

We the Nican Tlaca, collective Indigenous people, of this continent have a home, a homeland that is now called “North America” by the invaders from Europe . Our homeland is now illegally occupied and controlled by European descendants. We have no other home, nowhere else to go but this continent and we will not be limited by what Europeans say is our land and what is not our land. The Nican Tlaca, Indigenous people, of what is now called Mexico and “Central America” are part of the same people as the Indigenous people of Canada and the United States. We, the collective thinking and conscious Nican Tlaca of this continent, know that we are one people, one race, one culture, and we reject the illegal and artificial European divisions (borders) on our continent and their fraudulent divisions imposed on our people.

Europeans have no right to define who we are as a people. They also have no right to claim ownership of even one grain of sand from our beaches, not one drop of water, not one tree, nothing of this continent belongs to Europeans or their descendants. This whole continent belongs collectively to the Nican Tlaca, the Indigenous people of this continent.

Europeans have a home, a homeland that is called Europe. Europeans have broken and entered into our home, our continent. They have committed crime upon crime to cover up all knowledge of their genocidal crimes against our people, to destroy all our legal rights to our continent and all of its resources. They have divided us by borders, calling us by different false names, and raping our population. None of this takes away the fact that collectively all of the Nican Tlaca of this continent are one people, one race, one culture, and one nation that cannot be divided for the convenience, enrichment, and exploitation of Europeans. Our continent and our people have been artificially divided by Europeans for the purpose of stealing the wealth of our land, the wealth of our resources, and the slave labor of our people. Europeans cannot legally or morally take away from us our 50,000 years of racial unity on this continent, and they cannot take away from us our right to be on any part of our continent, and they cannot take away our ownership of this land, this continent, and all of its natural resources.

Yes, this is all about European racism. This is all about how Europeans are wanting to hold on to what they have stolen from us. This is all about maintaining the present and future industrial plantation of the white race on our continent, with the Indigenous population serving as impoverished and ignorant slaves.

What would white people do if they were in our position? Would they elect to continue as slaves to another race, or would they work and struggle to be free from the racism that dominates and terrorizes their lives, that impoverishes their people, that denies them their full humanity? If they would not remain slaves, why would they expect us to remain slaves, in ignorance, in a slow-motion genocide that guarantees the extermination of our people?

What do we want? First we just want the truth to come out to the whole world about the crimes of Europeans on our continent, and then we want justice. This is why Cannabis is illegal european? because in ALL our Nations it, (Cannabis) was ALWAYS LEGAL! Get it!

Anonymous on
November 11, 2009 7:52 pm

We are the Nican Tlaca, the Indigenous people of this continent, that make this declaration to the world.

We are the Canadian “First Nation” people. We are the “Native Americans”. We are the Indigenous people of Mexico and “Central America”. We are, in our unity, the collective owners of this continent. We recognize no European “settler” (squatter-invader) borders on our continent. We recognize no borders that have been set by European colonizers in the last 500 years.

We are defending our people with our words and actions. We are defending our continent. We are defending the liberated future of our people, our Nican Tlaca nation.

To defend our people and our continent is not a crime. It is not “illegal” to defend your people. It is not “illegal” to travel/migrate on your own land, on your own continent. It is our right and our duty to defend ourselves from the terrorism that has been inflicted on us since 1492 by the hordes of illegal European immigrants.

Let us continue our declaration by being really clear that this whole “immigration and illegals” proposed legislation (all versions) is all about race and racism, racism against Nican Tlaca (Indigenous people), nothing less and nothing more. All the pretend talk of “borders” and “lost American jobs” is all a fraud.

This is all part of the same old legislative racism that defended slavery with laws, that defended segregation with laws, that defended “Indian Killings” with laws, that defended the theft of this whole continent from us the Nican Tlaca (Indigenous people) with laws.

The reality is that the ongoing “immigration and illegals” debate is totally dishonest. This debate needs to be honest by first discussing the hidden history of illegal European immigration to our continent from 1492 to the present. This history of European illegal immigration onto our continent has to be discussed intelligently and aggressively by our people, so that the European descendants of those illegal invasions of our continent can see how they are the only real “illegal immigrants” on this continent. Nican Tlaca cannot under any circumstances be considered “illegal” on this continent.

The European criminal invasions, killings, massacres, and outright ethnocide that killed 95% of our population CANNOT BE SWEPT UNDER THE CARPET OF “THAT’S THE PAST”. That Genocide which “emptied out the land” for Europeans, and allowed for the theft of our wealth of resources, is what unjustifiably enriched Europeans in Europe and Europeans on our continent. We will not “get over it” because it affects us everyday in our poverty, and in the denied access to the vast wealth of our continent. Europeans (whites) control not just the U.S. and Canada but they also control Mexico (Fox is a whiteman) and “Central America”, so everyone can drop the pretense that Mexico and “Central America” are somehow controlled by our people, by Nican Tlaca, Indigenous people.

This whole continent has a history of racism from the point that Europeans came here illegally in 1492. The history begins with the illegal entry of Columbus in 1492, Cortez in 1519, Pizarro in 1532, De Soto in 1538, Oñate in 1598, Pirates at Jamestown 1607, Pilgrim racists in 1619, illegal takeover of “Louisiana Territory” in 1803, Texas in 1836, “Southwest” in 1848, and every inch of land on this continent that has been stolen by killing us (Nican Tlaca, the legitimate and only owners of all of this continent).

There is a long history of illegal Europeans committing crimes against our people on our continent. AND NOW THEY HAVE THE GUILTLESS, SHAMELESS, NERVE TO CALL US “ILLEGALS”? To say that we are criminal trespassers. What happened to truth, to morality, to a sense of justice? Or to guilt and shame for committing crimes? Christians? These are civilized people?

In this criminal historic context, the Post-1492 European-descent illegal immigrants that came to our continent over the last 500 years became the only group of people that could be referred to as “illegals”. WE, THE NICAN TLACA, INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF THIS CONTINENT, under no circumstances can be considered “illegal”, no matter what we are labeled or what European languages we have been forced to speak. All treaties were broken by Europeans, thus they are all null and void. All treaties were signed under threat of more European terrorist attacks on our people, thus they are null and void.

1492 is the only starting point from which “illegals” can be spoken of on this continent. Without that starting point, European descent people speaking of any Nican Tlaca, Indigenous person of this continent, as an “illegal” today is all a criminal fraud and an immoral lie.

We the Nican Tlaca, collective Indigenous people, of this continent have a home, a homeland that is now called “North America” by the invaders from Europe . Our homeland is now illegally occupied and controlled by European descendants. We have no other home, nowhere else to go but this continent and we will not be limited by what Europeans say is our land and what is not our land. The Nican Tlaca, Indigenous people, of what is now called Mexico and “Central America” are part of the same people as the Indigenous people of Canada and the United States. We, the collective thinking and conscious Nican Tlaca of this continent, know that we are one people, one race, one culture, and we reject the illegal and artificial European divisions (borders) on our continent and their fraudulent divisions imposed on our people.

Europeans have no right to define who we are as a people. They also have no right to claim ownership of even one grain of sand from our beaches, not one drop of water, not one tree, nothing of this continent belongs to Europeans or their descendants. This whole continent belongs collectively to the Nican Tlaca, the Indigenous people of this continent.

Europeans have a home, a homeland that is called Europe. Europeans have broken and entered into our home, our continent. They have committed crime upon crime to cover up all knowledge of their genocidal crimes against our people, to destroy all our legal rights to our continent and all of its resources. They have divided us by borders, calling us by different false names, and raping our population. None of this takes away the fact that collectively all of the Nican Tlaca of this continent are one people, one race, one culture, and one nation that cannot be divided for the convenience, enrichment, and exploitation of Europeans. Our continent and our people have been artificially divided by Europeans for the purpose of stealing the wealth of our land, the wealth of our resources, and the slave labor of our people. Europeans cannot legally or morally take away from us our 50,000 years of racial unity on this continent, and they cannot take away from us our right to be on any part of our continent, and they cannot take away our ownership of this land, this continent, and all of its natural resources.

Yes, this is all about European racism. This is all about how Europeans are wanting to hold on to what they have stolen from us. This is all about maintaining the present and future industrial plantation of the white race on our continent, with the Indigenous population serving as impoverished and ignorant slaves.

What would white people do if they were in our position? Would they elect to continue as slaves to another race, or would they work and struggle to be free from the racism that dominates and terrorizes their lives, that impoverishes their people, that denies them their full humanity? If they would not remain slaves, why would they expect us to remain slaves, in ignorance, in a slow-motion genocide that guarantees the extermination of our people?

What do we want? First we just want the truth to come out to the whole world about the crimes of Europeans on our continent, and then we want justice.

“If you listen to lies, they will kill your mind” Sitting Bull; July 4th 1879

707Bay420Area on
November 10, 2009 7:41 pm

haha @ this fool… I’m from Cali, and we want legalization everywhere… Besides, Cali’s got love for Marc & Canadia (I never liked saying Canada for some reason). We’re all fighting the same struggle around the globe. We have to be 1 Unified Army, with no tolerance for disruptive individuals or factions like the idiot above.

The link that was posted
@ http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-03-beer_N.htm
is sooo hypocritical; I can’t wrap my head around how dense people’s brains in this country actually are. Weren’t prohibitionists, politicians, and the media bombarding us with the Proven Fact that More Potent Cannabis is more dangerous? Oh, yeah… Here it is: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9o7x4_congress-warns-new-super-pot-danger_news
I, personally don’t drink, but if you want to do that; then go for it. It’s not my business, just as what I do shouldn’t be any of yours. But, how the fuck do people not realize that weed’s not illegal b/c the Gov. cares about your health? Alcohol is far more dangerous than Cannabis. I’m always baffled when people say that they don’t smoke weed b/c it’s bad for you, or kill you (alcohol, of course does not) or w/e nonsense I can make out of their drunken response… Too many people accept anything that they’ve been told w/o questioning “WHY”; these sheep make up the majority of Amerikkka. These idiots make up their mind about issues because someone told them that’s what they should be thinking. Conservative Talk Radio, Mass Media, the Gov., LE, most of your educators, many Religious Leaders (usually closer to the Anti-Christ, than God), etc. constantly feed you bullshit your whole life… How can you ever make an informed decision when you accept w/e an authority figure force-feeds you to believe? People need to be educated, and now that the older closed-minded folks are dying off, progress has a chance. *end rant

LEGALIZE IT EVERYWHERE!!!

Anonymous on
November 10, 2009 3:25 am

The nail has just been hit on the head.

Here here S. Stahl

bubner on
November 10, 2009 1:37 am

Are you drunk?

S. Stahl on
November 10, 2009 1:32 am

I am a 24 year old who has had my fair share of misfortunes in life. Most of them I brought on to myself, mostly through drinking heavily and making some seriously bad decisions. I’ve seen many friends die because of it.

I’m not against alcohol by any means, although I choose not to drink these days. But the point is, we ARE influenced to consume alcohol through the media, our parents, friends etc, from a young age.

Marijuana has given me a new life. I also know others who’s lives have been turned around because of this plant. I am not joking, this plant can save lives. The only other alternative for a recovering alcoholic like me is AA meetings, and they dont like marijuana either. In fact, they discourage it.

We need to keep exposing the lies!! Great article, I’ve been waiting to see something like this for quite some time now.

Brian Kerr on
November 10, 2009 1:02 am

The Canadian Government is run by an evangelical whack job.

Vote Green.

Worm on
November 9, 2009 10:00 pm

Our own government did not take the advice of a senate commitee which suggested legalizing.

Anonymous on
November 9, 2009 9:49 pm

Figures the American troll is clearly battling illiteracy.

Don’t get me started with strains, and where they truly originated from.

If it wasn’t for the United State of America, INC. and it’s intrusive parties ( DEA ) working and influencing our domestic policy, we would have legalized marijuana quite a while ago.
California is the land of hypocrites ego maniacs and bums. The state has devolved from being a progressive haven, to an oppressive police state, neck deep in debt.

Furthermore the organized criminal powers that be have polluted any wholesome grow ops that did operate with peace love and freedom.

Give us a call when you are not run by republicans and religious fundamentalists whose majority is reflected in such things as the lack of gay marriage.

Fred Sanford on
November 9, 2009 9:48 pm

boycott the crown? boycott canada? How about boycott iliterate morons from being able to use the comment sections! Its because of uneduacted people like you that cannabis is illeagle in the first place! All governments are evil right now and it is their goal to fill the countries jails and have all other citizens completly retarded such as yourself. You don’t relise it but your a puppet to the government you git! Smarten up! How about reading a book you fool!

Anonymous on
November 9, 2009 8:49 pm

As long as Cannabis culture has Ploice officer working for them the people of the California Cannabis Growers hereby withdraw all and any help with any movement in canada. There are part of the problem with weed and we shall not be ever thought of being under such bad leadership the magazine people of canada do not speak or rep.us now or ever we choice to go our own way because of the ratisct ways of youe country. We dont want nor will we EVER share any and all strains with canada again . californis for pt,asst. BOYCOTT the CROWN!! BOYCOTT CANADA!!

George Lenard on
November 9, 2009 8:26 pm

If all drugs including alcohol where rated by the severity of the physical withdrawal in a true and honest attempt to warn our children of each substance’s addictive powers? How many kids that got a hold of weed and smoked a few joints got goofy and happy and got up the next morning feeling fine, wondering why all the negative falsities the authorities say about marijuana, maybe cocaine is not so bad either?
Alcohol is legal, yet the comparative damage to society from marijuana is non-existent! Why do we continue to lie to our youth about drugs? Why does our major media not investigate the heroin flow out of Afghanistan during the Bush years? Why does the CIA’s involvement always seem to increase the quantities of illegal drugs entering North American? Why would politicians lie to get elected? Is it an addiction? If you look at the monetary damage done by the lies told by our politicians, weed should be free!!!!!!

Anonymous on
November 9, 2009 7:50 pm

I ran across this by accident today. Even the staunch anti-marijuana states such as Alabama and West Virginia have voted to raise alcohol contents in beer. Some states are raising the limits in beer from 6% to around 13.9%. That’s a big jump.

It’s apparent that the states with harsh marijuana possession and cultivation penalties have agendas other than public health and such in mind. They are condemning marijuana based on personal, moralistic reasons, not facts and scientific research.